Driver called close to bin Laden

Associated Press

July 24, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A Guantanamo prisoner on trial for war crimes was so close to Osama bin Laden that he attended a meeting of top al-Qaida aides the day of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a former FBI agent testified yesterday.

Defendant Salim Hamdan heard bin Laden praise the attacks and the hijackers at the meeting in Afghanistan, former agent Ali Soufan said as prosecutors sought to build their case in the first U.S. military war crimes trial since World War II.

Bin Laden even gave Hamdan marriage advice and held a feast for him after his marriage, Soufan said, recounting interrogations of the prisoner at Guantanamo to counter defense claims that the defendant was merely a lowly driver with no significant link to terrorism.

"It shows a close relationship and the affinity that Mr. bin Laden has for him," said Soufan, addressing the Pentagon-selected jury of U.S. military officers, referring to the wedding celebration.

Hamdan, a Yemeni who has been held at Guantanamo since May 2002, is charged with conspiracy and aiding terrorism. He faces up to life in prison if convicted in a trial that is providing the first test of the U.S. system for prosecuting alleged terrorists.

The defense has portrayed Hamdan as a bit player, a driver with a fourth-grade education who earned about $200 a month working for bin Laden.

Prosecutors claim he was close enough to the inner circle that he attended the meeting in Kabul on the day of the attacks. Also in attendance, Soufan said, were top lieutenants Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is still at large, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is imprisoned at Guantanamo and is also slated to face a war crimes tribunal at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

Soufan, who was a top FBI terrorism expert until he left the agency in 2005, said Hamdan helped move bin Laden and one of his sons, Uthman, to a safer location days before Sept. 11, 2001.

After the attacks, Hamdan continued to help bin Laden despite hearing him boast about the number of people killed, he said.

"He heard bin Laden saying that he didn't expect the operation to be that successful," Soufan said. "He only thought 1,000 or 1,500 people would perish, so he was happy about the results."